


Backstage

by harper_m



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harper_m/pseuds/harper_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mellie wasn't sure how the sharing of secrets led from there to having Olivia in her bed, but she wasn't willing to scrutinze too closely either. (Assumes knowledge of the Defiance pact.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backstage

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Femslash in February kink meme. The prompt was cheating.

There was an old saying about secrets, she seemed to recall. Secrets bind, maybe, or only work if everyone who knows them is dead. Then again, it was getting to the point where she couldn’t remember anything anymore, secret or not, her brain and body running on autopilot. She’d been smiling on autopilot too, the expression burned into her with the kind of muscle memory Olympic athletes developed by treating a sport like a job. It hurt somewhere she refused to acknowledge that maybe this was her job these days, standing by Fitz’s side and smiling while he took the world by rain shower rather than storm, clearing out just in time for the bank of thunderclouds that was Cyrus and Olivia to wield the kind of political clout that actually made things happen.

She’d dreamed of this, back when she still allowed herself dreams. They’d been dreams full of the razor-edged feeling of doing something meaningful and important – a giant leap for all mankind kind of important – and even when her Daddy had whispered in her ear about how she could make something of herself, how she could be the strength behind an important man one day, her dreams had her behind the podium with adoring voters waving signs adorned with her name. It wouldn’t do, of course. There was a way and a place to wield her particular kind of power, and it was never in the light. Still, she’d told herself that she wouldn’t turn into her mother, living a half-life of vodka gimlets, Vicodan, and bitter smiles while the good man she was propping up took the other half for his own and lived twice as large. Her Daddy, and she’d loved him, she had, but Mellie had never quite managed to find a way to make it sit right with her, the way he ran through cash, women, and anything else he damned well pleased without having to think about what it would take to clean up the mess.

Fitz was supposed to have been different. He was supposed to have been someone worthy of her steady pressure at his back. He was supposed to have respected her, to see that she was more than a vehicle to the set pieces he needed to present the perfect picture, that of a beautiful marriage and two adorable children. She’d thought she was more than just another step on his path to proving his own value to the world. He was supposed to have elevated her, brought her around to his side and walked through life in step with her. Life didn’t serve up Prince Charmings with the frequency that she’d read about in fairy tales, but Fitz had the gleam of the genuine article. Too bad, then, that she’d ended up with a good-hearted if ineffectual man who couldn’t seem to find a way to keep it in his pants. Maybe a man like her Daddy would have been better. If hope had never had a chance to take root, she’d never have known to miss it.

And Olivia. Christ, she’d been so patient with their painfully obvious courtship, so willfully obtuse for as long as she possibly could because she was willing to sacrifice for the greater good. If Fitz needed a new pet to keep him on track, then so be it. She was his partner in this, not Olivia, and he could have his dalliance just so long as he kept the end game in mind. Fuck him for the way the shadow of her mother seemed to be looming ever closer, but she could be reasonable. They were going to the White House, and incredible journeys required some measure of sacrifice. When they reached the summit, she’d have the luxury of time to find all of the pieces of herself she’d lost along the way.

If the way she started to take them back wasn’t pretty, at least it was effective.

The first time had been almost stereotypical in its lack of control. Weary to the bone, anxious in the kind of way that left some part shaking, even if it wasn’t visible, and with the weight of what they were hiding an ever constant pressure, they’d come together with a mindless desperation that made no sense. It wasn’t logical. Wasn’t smart. It wasn’t that they hated each other, but they knew their roles well. Mellie was Fitz’s wife; Olivia his mistress. They circled one another, tolerated one another. They didn’t find themselves in a bathroom stall clawing at skin and skirts, silent in the wake of kisses bordering on brutal. They didn’t wash up after, still silent, unable to meet each other’s eyes in the mirror above the sink.

When it happened again, as deliberate as the first time had been anything but, Mellie took the time to wonder if Olivia thought she was yet another campaign problem to be handled. She’d almost laughed at the thought of it, of Olivia as a full-service manager of the messy bits of political campaigning – namely, her and Fitz – but there was no laughter left inside her. It was as like to turn into a sob as anything else, and so Mellie focused instead on surrendering to the freedom of not knowing what the hell she was doing. She thought that maybe she’d finally gone around the bend, having a sordid affair with her husband’s mistress, one misstep away from becoming the laughingstock of the nation.

She wondered if her mother had ever stepped away from her pills and alcohol long enough to develop an addiction as dangerous as Olivia Pope.

Like just now, with the world baying for their attention on the other side of the hotel room’s door and disaster and discovery close enough that she could feel it, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Olivia was smart and competent; it was always in her eyes, even when Mellie would have rather stopped at naked and gorgeous. She loved that she didn’t even have to say the words. Stay there, her look said, and Olivia sank back against the mattress with a smirk that made it seem like it was her idea. The kind of woman she could fall in love with, Mellie thought, as if such a thing was even possible. As if they weren’t trapped in a Greek tragedy waiting to happen, living on bad ideas and bad judgment in a way Mellie had never allowed herself before.

“Come here,” Olivia said, her voice the kind of low and sultry that could make even the most steadfast of hearts race. “Stop thinking.”

As if her brain could manage it. As if she didn’t know that she was a wife and a mother and not the kind of woman who found solace in the arms of another woman. As if she could pretend that Olivia was hers alone, and that the three of them – Olivia, Fitz, herself – weren’t engaged in some kind of destructive mélange destined to leave someone hurting. Probably her, she acknowledged, because that was the way something like this had to end.

“Mellie.” Olivia’s voice had a hint of steel in it. She wanted to follow as blindly as Fitz, to say ‘Yes, Olivia. Whatever you say, Olivia’, and let the rest of the world sort itself out without her help. God, she could see why Fitz loved her. “We don’t have long before we have to leave this room and pretend like we can only barely manage to tolerate one another. I don’t want to waste any more of it. Do you?”

Olivia put her hand on the bed beside her, a clear invitation. Mellie let herself smile a real smile as she slipped out of her blouse, her skirt, her heels, and slid into bed in the space that had been reserved for her. She rolled onto her side, slid her hand against the back of Olivia’s neck, and pulled her down for a kiss. As if she could read Mellie’s mind, or maybe predict perfectly what it was she needed, Olivia settled over her, one thigh insinuated between Mellie’s legs and the weight of her body a comforting anchor.

“It took you long enough,” Olivia said, smiling in a way that cut them off from the rest of the world. She wrapped her hands around Mellie’s wrists and pressed them into the bedding above her head before kissing her again.

Another hour lost before she had to resume her real life again. “It did,” she agreed, twining her legs with Olivia’s, feeling the minutes slip away from her. “Let me make it up to you.”

She’d find her senses again later and wonder what the hell she thought she was doing, letting herself wallow in this affair. Maybe much later, if she was lucky, losing herself in the way Olivia moved above her; losing herself in the way she could arch her back and cry out and claw at Olivia’s skin, already thinking of ways she could return the favor.

Maybe never, if she tried hard enough.


End file.
